


Biography of a Roman General?

by Isobel (Editor_Isobel)



Category: ContraPoints
Genre: Fiction, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1950-11-18
Updated: 1950-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-11 18:22:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12941058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Editor_Isobel/pseuds/Isobel
Summary: This translation seems to be the glimer of clarity from within a mind clouded by syphilis.





	Biography of a Roman General?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Natalie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natalie/gifts).



> These are the fragments of the account, (translated from latin) of a Roman strategist: Antony Acuteus

Antony Acuteus - who's skin used to be easily marked by tiny incisions from the standard army armour, so he had the nickname of Incisura  
(though some contemporary accounts claim that it was from his highly skillful ability with a tiny dagger that enabled him to imperceptibly  
cut his opponent in combat, such that only later would they realise the changes that Antony had made to their body.)  
His skin condition is probably what caused his preference for toga wearing and despite the impracticality he managed to use it to his advantage.(More on that later).

He seems to have grown up in a relatively comfortable middle-class household with two brothers and a sister.  
Antony showed very little military promise as a child, preferring to study the works of Plato and Aristotle. He tried his hand as a tour guide of the city of Rome and, (for a short while) a novelty lectica-on-wheels chauffeur.

Sometime during his youth Antony met and joined with a soothsayer named Garrulus. Garrulus had a pet crow called Glandarius. The crow would "tell" Garrulus things that other people had said and Garrulus would "relay" these messages to Antony. Antony came to trust Garrulus and found her to be very good at relaying messages.

Antony seems to have joined the army not for the glory of Rome, (or his house) but for the lack of anything better to do. His training was minimal, but due, (partly) to his family and, (mostly) to his connections he was sent off to lead a measly force to expand the known world. His youth spent reading meant that he was well aware of the types of barbarian that he would face and had the type of personality that was more fascinated by them than revolted.

During campaign, Antony had surprising, (though limited) success in his first commissioned campaign. He had woefully limited resources, (the Senate didn't expect much from him) but managed to convert a surprising number of hearts and minds in his first battle. He was surprised that a great number of the population's bards seemed to resonate with his unusual strategy, (of which I will elucidate next.)

Antony had his tent pitched in the middle of his front line. In the morning he sent out the order for his small force to array either side. The enemy village only sent out five men, and a few women went as well, as the village thought that their palisade was more than enough to fend off such a meagre Roman force.

Just as the sun rose, (the usual time to start a battle) the sunlight swept down the front of Antony's tent. This was considered to be a huge blunder, (setting up so that your army has the sun in its eyes - limiting visibility). It was at that moment that Antony flung open the red drapes of his tent and emerged onto the battle field. He was dresses in the whitest toga anyone had ever seen. He wore gold and silver that reflected the light. The villagers, (and even many of his own side) didn't know what to make of it. Some laughed. Some were shocked. Some were confused. Antony marched forward without a visible weapon. His troops advanced parallel to his position, though it was a gentle walk - most did it automatically as they were fascinated to know what was about to happen. Antony reached a distance where he could safely talk to the villagers and broke out into song. His troops listened. The villagers listened. All of the years of studying ancient Hellenic thought meant that he could form a reasoned argument and that he had the rhetoric skills to deliver. (Thankfully Antony didn't realise that he had zero practice of actually doing it in the middle of a battle field, or he might not have tried.)

All who listened were sufficiently convinced that by lunchtime the village had invited Antony in and agreed to join Rome.

This strategy went on for many months. Each battle Antony's outfit would change, often opting to dress as a woman or a native bard. With practice his performance improved and it got to the point where villages would come out without weapons to meet Antony and watch his performance.

 

Antony had become an unstoppable power. A power that Antony struggled to understand. It is that very struggle that gives value to the message. An unexamined life is worthless, but though an introspective life can make great and rapid progress, like a mighty trireme over a sea of ignorance, it can easily be blown off course by minor squalls and can become becalmed by a doldrums of depression or anxiety.

Over the non-battles that Antony created, he slowly become known as Tony (for a brief moment) and then Toni. His garb became exclusively female and legends began to circulate that Mercury had been sent from Mt. Olympus with a magic potion to increase Toni's power by turning her into a maiden.

In Britannia Toni made the acquaintance of a young boy named yXxerzes who, having read the Gospel according to Joseph, was a devout convert. yXxerzes had a small following and wasn't stupid but he was exactly the right level of intelligence to be blinded by his own limited education and experience, (also reading the Gospel of Joseph as a teenager can have some ridiculously impractical notions.) yXxerzes was later found guilty of trying to free other people's slaves and was sentenced to slavery as punishment. He later confessed that he had been misguided though he never accepted culpability citing, "I was young and didn't know better." Sadly his followers didn't realise that and his previous messages were taken as gospel and created various riots for which he felt no culpability.

A great crowd of yXxerzes followers and "Maiden's of Toni" gathered to witness their interlocution. Both orators mostly agreed and both had their blindly devout followers. Those that had no allegiance to either realised the naïveté of yXxerzes. Due to his fanatical devotion and certainty in his belief, (and many years of entertaining crowded markets with his rants) yXxerzes had a better talent for talking, but it slowly became clear that despite not finding a serious objection to each others positions, (though some speculated that Toni did see objections but chose not to attack to advance her cause) Toni's thoughts and opinions had a much more solid foundation from having read widely on all topics of wisdom. yXxerzes on the other hand was precariously balanced on one out-dated doctrine and didn't even realise how little he actually understood the subjects of which he broached.

Such forms of entertainment were occasional distractions from Toni's main work.

Sadly Garrulus the soothsayer had syphilis and mild schizophrenia. This is where, (as later historians named it) "The great Doubting" occurred. The year was 571 a.u. (Ab urbe condita i.e. 217 B.C.). Her blend of maladies caused Garrulus to relay more and more messages from those that were too young to understand Toni's tactics or those too old to have the energy to even entertain the notion that there could be progress from their, "perfectly rational" positions. Over and over Toni was metaphorically stabbed by hurtful messages. This is why this document must be written. To balance the insanity of those days.

Garrulus could see the many paths into the future and could even track down the most probable. She could see the damage that she had done and wondered if the senate back in Rome had hired a witch to curse her or invoked a god to afflict her. In moments of lucidity she dismissed these ideas as paranoia, but there was always the residual feeling that if the senate wanted Toni silenced then clouding her mind with self-doubt and confusion and sadness would be the best strategy.

In a bright flash of clarity Garrulus was visited by the goddess Euryphaessa. Euryphaessa explained that the noble truths and loving people for whom Toni fought were in need of help. Some of the people for whom Toni fought were going to let their own fears and ignorance to reject Toni not because she was wrong or different, but because she was successful and operating at a more complex and subtle level than they could envisage. The sad truth was that the strongest detractors of Toni would be those that she was helping the most. Euryphaessa commanded Garrulus to write this down and hide it in a container to which Toni's attention would be drawn at a time in the future.

Toni's talks were transcribed and became plays. In the one, simply titled, "Violence" we can clearly see the doubt gutting the message. Toni's presentation, (as with each of her speeches in the year 571 a.u.) improved on her previous one, but Violence, (ironically) has the legs cut from under it by the violet war inside of Toni's head, (entirely due to the lies and insanity, (and possibly indirect manipulation) that was funnelled through Garrulus.)

I write this testimony and store it so that Toni will find it at the appointed time. The moral that I must deliver is this, "A hero without a shadow of doubt, is a tyrant." A tyrant is a confident hero. A hero is a tyrant with doubts. "If a hero is without a shadow of a doubt then they are a tyrant." (Even now clarity and sanity flee from me; the goddess's message becomes vague but you now see her truth.

With the last vestiges of my sanity I write this account of things that will come to have meaning many years from now.

Garrulus & Glandarius. 531 a.u.

**Author's Note:**

> [Translators note: The writing was scratched into clay tablets in Cuneiform, (of all alphabets) but the words are Latin. At times the markings on the clay are rushed and manic and in other places they are relatively clear. They were fired by being placed into a wood fire, (clearly the scribe didn't understand how to fire tablets) and from the embedded carbon my archaeology team were able to verify the artefacts as having been formed in the year 170 BC +/- 10 years. This is corroborated by independent potassium–argon dating to 175 BC +/- 2 years. Such objects are a conundrum for us, as no Romans should have been using the, (to them) lost alphabet of Cuneiform.]


End file.
